CD Review: The Remix – Dr. Charles G. Hayes and the Warriors

The Remix
Dr. Charles G. Hayes and the Warriors
ICEE Inspirational CD ICEE-7296
2005

No choir comes close to the Warriors of Chicago’s Cosmopolitan Church of Prayer for excellence in traditional gospel performance.

For more than forty years, the Warriors – under the direction of Dr. Charles G. Hayes and originally known as the choir of the Universal Kingdom of Christ – has stayed true to the dynamic, down-home sound of the gospel choir as designed by its architect, Thomas Andrew Dorsey. As such, the Warriors occupy the same rarified air as the famed Echoes of Eden of the St. Paul Baptist Church of Los Angeles and Thurston Frazier’s Voices of Victory.

But today, as Dr. Hayes eloquently acknowledges at the beginning of The Remix, even traditional choirs need to change with the times, though he adds, “I never thought this day would come.” But Hayes and his choir, as evidenced on The Remix, are more than prepared for its coming.

While the term “remix” is often used to identify a musically altered version of an original recording – perhaps the original master is given a new beat, provided with layered instrumentation or undergoes some other type of synthesis – this is not what The Remix, produced by Dr. Charles T. White of ICEE Records, is about. Rather, The Remix contains brand new recordings of Warriors’ classics, modernized in arrangement and production, to appeal to a newer and wider audience.

So, for example, the runaway hit of this project, “Jesus Can Work it Out,” is indeed the song made famous by the Warriors and Rev. Maceo Woods’ Christian Tabernacle before that, but it is a brand new recording, complete with a few new lyrics to keep things fresh and up-to-date.

Also, The Remix is not a Warriors’ “Greatest Hits” CD, though I suggest that such a project is long overdue. Some of the choir’s classics are here, but others, notably “Every Time I Feel the Spirit” and “Every Day is a Day of Thanksgiving,” are not present.

I won’t go into detail on “Jesus Can Work it Out” since I already have spoken highly of it elsewhere on TBGB. Suffice it to say, gospel music historians will look back on the remix of “Jesus” as a textbook example of how the right song, the right hook, the right production, the right promotion, and the leadership of the urban radio network made this a hit, even before gospel radio latched onto it. Does this signify a move back to traditional gospel? Probably not, but it has certainly helped old-church songs gain some new followers, and afforded plenty of newfound respect for the longevity of the gospel music catalog.

The Remix offers more than the usual share of choir workouts, notably “He Laid His Hands on Me,” “He Can Do Anything,” “Jesus is Mine,” and “All in His Hands.” There is even a hidden track, an alternate version of “Jesus Can Work it Out,” on which Dianne Williams extends an already exhaustive list of ways Jesus can…er…work it out.

The only track that doesn’t work on The Remix is “Your Worthy.” Besides the title’s syntax problems, the arrangement is given too extreme of a makeover, resulting in a choir that momentarily loses its distinctiveness to sound like the many thousands of leader-and-ensemble aggregations populating gospel music today. But this is a small price to pay to hear the Warriors knock the cowhide off another gospel music ball.

Finally – but less importantly – I suspect The Remix will go down in history as being the first CD to include photos taken at Chicago’s new Millenium Park. One cannot help but notice that the photo of Dr. Hayes – looking as proudly old-school as ever – with the shiny, new Pritzker Pavilion in the background, is the visual equivalent of the audio within the jewel case.